Leaving this morning for girl's camp. A friend and I host our daughters plus four friends for four days. Our friends live on a large lake, so we will kayak and boat, along with a hiking day. The girls are so excited, as I am trying to be. Honestly, I am nervous that I will not have enough energy. But, fretting won't help anything, so I am putting into practice what the Lord has been teaching me about being thankful when anxiety creeps in.

When I feel anxious, that means I am focusing on the problems more than on God's ability. Girl's camp is another opportunity for God's strength to be shown through my weakness. Thankfulness pushes out anxiety and gets my focus back on Jesus.Thank you Lord for today. Today is a gift, not a garuantee. May I honoring You faithfully with every moment. You are my strength; I will put the straw of my heart into Your overflowing cup and sip from it all day long. Thank You for Your ever faithfulness, Amen.

True emotion, truly moves me. That is a Todd quote that I love more and more as I think about it. I’ve always thought that people respect sincerity, and true emotion is sincere. As a parent, our children know better than anyone what gets us emotional. What we get emotional about is what will move them. What is it that touches your emotions? Is that what you want to move your children?

A clean house, exercise, sports, fancy dinner, nice clothes, beautiful hair, gossip, weather, a novel, what do you talk about passionately or get upset about if it isn’t right?

How do we talk about our Savior? Are we like the speaker that gets excited about every detail of their testimony up to Christ and then stumbles quickly over their conversion and new life? We must have true emotion about Christ for our children to be moved towards Him. (obviously, Christ can call our children to Himself without us in the picture at all, I am just saying our sincere worship will speak to our children)

I am not encouraging you to live by your emotions. Instead, realize that whatever you have true emotion about, will move your children.

An acquaintance told me, “When I was raising my children, I was always ready for a fight. Moms now days make excuses to avoid a conflict.”

What she was referring to is when a mom tells her child to do something and the child doesn’t do it. Instead of backing her words the mom excuses the child by deciding “oh, it wasn’t a big deal” or “I guess I don’t really care if he does that” or “she’s tired” or “he must not be feeling well” or….

Please get this; what we say doesn’t matter as much as the response we get to what we say. As soon as we give an instruction, it becomes important.

If we truly love our children, we will see that our children obey us with proper respect. (I Timothy 3: 4)

Even if you don’t care about what you told your child to do, you NEED to follow through otherwise you are devaluing your words for the future. Even if you wish you hadn’t given that instruction, you NEED to follow through or a child will never know when to take you seriously.

Look to the future. It may not seem like a big deal to let a toddler get away with not picking up his mess, but you have watered the weed of entitlement that becomes extremely difficult to uproot as they get older.

Our motherly duty is to prepare our children for adulthood. We are to train them in the way they should go. Whether it is purposeful training or training while doing life, training is to be our focus.

So, if you have fallen into avoiding conflict by making excuses, reconsider if that is truly the parenting path God has put you on. Ask and obey.

Our oldest is leaving July 15th for South Sudan. Samantha is eighteen (almost nineteen) and doing an accounting internship with Samaritan’s Purse. She is beyond excited and eager to go. Right now the piles of paper work plus shots, has her living a little calmer, but over all she can’t wait to go.

“How do we feel about her going?” is a common question. Well, it is a pull between being thrilled for this opportunity for her and wanting to hold on and keep her close. My mother’s heart is aching; yet, there is nothing I want more for Sammy than to serve the Lord fully. (Wherever He may want her to go)

I think it is normal to have the conflicting feelings. I do wonder though if we as a culture have started to think it is our right to have our children live near us. Sure we spread out across the country, but several visits a year are a must. How about those missionary stories or even in the Wild West, when children left and families never saw them again. Did those parents love their children less than I do? I don’t think so; they just didn’t think it was there place to hold onto their children. They knew they were raising their children to be doers and that very well might mean having them leave.

Thankfully we live in an age where we can communicate even over several thousands of miles. We will be able to Skype with Sammy and she should be back home for Christmas. When I realize how blessed I am, it is easier to send her off with our blessing.

It was during my husband’s last stay in the hospital, after three months of up and down heart problems, that he said, “I have to get a new job.” Now, we know his job didn’t cause his heart issues, but the past couple of years had become very stressful, so we were pretty sure it wasn’t helping matters. Still, it is easier to say, “I need a new job “than to get a new job. How surprised we were when he got a job offer one week after his last hospital stay. We were thrilled; not the best timing, but God must have a plan.After choosing to trust that God was leading and that He was protecting us, Todd accepted the position. There was pure joy, except the tiny fear that his health might be a problem. But we pushed that aside, trusting the Lord was bigger. We were pretty sure that his old job would counter. Before he gave his notice I reminded him that no amount of money would make his stress better, he needed a change. Todd quickly phoned his boss to give him a heads up that he was going to give his notice in the morning. His boss told him to hold on until he could get back to him. Later that evening, the "President" called. He was about to board a plane but took a few minutes to call. He had four things to tell Todd. First, he told him that he had to do what was best for him and his family. None the less, he wanted to ensure Todd that if there was anything they could do to keep him that he wanted to do it. I can't recall the third point, but the final point was that he just liked him and wanted to have him on his team. Really I wanted to tell him to not even listen to what they had to say. Good thing I kept that part to myself because, the next day they didn’t just throw money at him they offered him a different position.

Honestly, I did not see that coming, we were floored.On top of a new position they offered him a retainment bonus for staying. What?! Remember my husband has been in the hospital over three weeks the past three months. His company knows he is a health risk and they still wanted to keep him! Amazing, I felt so well cared for. In the end, he decided to stay at his current company. The bonus will help with medical bills, our home business and I can get my car fixed which has been acting up for some time. On top of all that our insurance won’t change so we don’t have to meet another deductible, plus all the other headaches of changing insurance. Lastly, the company he almost went to is BIG, at the end of each year the bottom tier is let go. If Todd’s health would have kept him from making his numbers, there was no history to save him. God DID protect us!

The only time Todd cried through his whole health crisis was when his Dr. told him he couldn’t go to Canada fishing this year. He had a trip planned with our son, his Dad and a man that is like a second Dad to him. This announcement came six weeks ago.

Three weeks after the Dr. broke his heart, Todd was back in the hospital. It was awful, nothing they tried was working and then he had an allergic reaction and couldn’t breathe; what next?

Our smaller town Dr. decided to send us to Mayo. While Todd was there they tried one final drug. It is an older drug with a lot of yucky side effects. BUT, it worked. Todd’s heart looked amazing on the screen I stared at all day while we were there.After five great days it was time to go home.Before we left Todd mustered the nerve to ask if he could go to Canada fishing.

At first the Dr. said, ”Perhaps not this year.” But without pausing she continued to talk and before I knew what had happened she gave him permission to go. I was not thrilled. I wanted to be happy for him, but he hasn’t gone over three weeks without a hospital stay in three months, how could I have peace? There were only two weeks between hospital dismissal and Canada fishing trip, I was praying for protection, wisdom and peace. Each day that Todd did well bolstered a little confidence that he would be okay in Canada, but I still didn’thave what I would call perfect peace.A few nights before he left, we were at our friend’s that was going with him. The men were sharing stories and planning the upcoming adventure. Suddenly, our friend said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I had cancelled your reservations when you initially told me you couldn’t come. When you said you would be able to come now, I called Arnie to see if that still worked for him. I barely got the words out that you were able to come and he said, ‘I know. After you called the first time we prayed for Todd and his family and God told me he would be coming. I have been planning on him the whole time.’” Needless to say, this brought tears to my eyes. What a gift from the Lord to a slightly anxious wife. Arnie and God knew the whole time that Todd was going to Canada! Although I kind of wish God would have told me, I am very thankful for the confirmation via Arnie. I got a message from Todd today. He normally doesn’t call the whole week he is in Canada, no cell service, but somehow he called. The message said he is doing well! Yahoo! He also mentioned that they have had some excitement and are catching fish. I have never enjoyed hearing my husband’s voice as much as I did today, again I give thanks to the Lord for His faithfulness.